POLITICAL

by Joanna Goodman

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I am interested in the “mono_ no_aware” state. The bittersweet appreciation of a moment or as some say the ahh-ness of the experience.

“Political” is part of a series of experimental paintings which are mediations on the concepts of transience and impermanence. Specifically, I am interested in the “mono_ no_ aware” state. The bittersweet appreciation of a moment or as some say the ahh-ness of the experience. It is with this mental state that I begin each piece. This experimental attitude allows for nonjudgmental playing with chemicals and paint to allow the creation of expressive visons.

The creation of such art has historical roots in Surrealism and Dadaism. These art movements coincided with the public’s interest in the unconscious.

My art making project is a two-part process. The first process is creating mixtures of paint and solvents that interact with one another and form a chemical mixture that can be poured, dripped, and cut when dry.

Like an alchemist, I use acrylic paint, ink, water color, household chemicals, and oil paint to create mixtures which have the property of attracting and repelling other paints. The resulting effects are psychically stimulating. The process invites me to observe the transient nature of the forms and colors as they ebb and fade into one another. It is a practice in learning to observe and allow the material to dictate to me rather than my trying to make something out of the moving paint.

The longer I can observe the change and flow of poured paint, without the need or desire to control or direct the forms appearing on the substrate, the more I can meditate on the transience of thought and the need to live in the experience of change. Ultimately, the paint will dry and stop interacting with itself. It is at that time I can begin my projective process of looking for parts of the picture that I want to bring to fruition. To use painterly techniques to make visible to others what I imagine seeing in the picture.

The face in “Political” is the result of such an experiment. I recognized those eyes as my own and their expression portrayed the way as way I feel after watching the news hour upon hour. The sense of fragmented hopelessness about the future of our current political situation and the feeling there is a tyrant behind a tyrant that is running the show.